


Bedtime Story

by talkingsoup



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route - "I want to stay with you."
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 07:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8569078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingsoup/pseuds/talkingsoup
Summary: There's a lot to get used to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Gift for my friend Zero!

It had been months now, but Sans didn’t think he was ever going to get used to it.

A lot of monsters shared the same sentiment. The Surface was  _ enormous, _ not just in terms of size but in terms of scope. The possibilities was one thing, the sky was another, but all the seemingly infinite open space was what had really gotten to a lot of them. No monster had seen this much open space in millennia. It was intimidating, and most monsters had stuck together after the barrier had fallen out of a need for closeness. A small community had sprung up not far from the mountain, and very few monsters had ventured beyond it.

It would come with time. Monsters would spread all over the globe eventually, if given the chance. That last part was still up for debate. Negotiations with the humans were ongoing, and Frisk was doing their level best as monsterkind’s tiny ambassador. Toriel and Asgore both had been a huge help, as they were at least used to politics and such. It was all pretty far over Sans’s head, and he tried not to pay too much attention to any of it. Monsters were happy, either way. Toriel was happy, even if she had to work with Asgore on occasion. Alphys and Undyne were happy, and currently co- _ happ _ itating. Papyrus was happy, which was the most important thing.

And Frisk was happy. For the most part. Which was a good thing, because maybe that mean that this one might last a little while. Not that Sans was getting his hopes up. He liked the kid, but he had no intention of getting too close, had no intention of dipping his toes into that pool of  _ happiness _ that was consuming monsterkind. Why bother when it might not even last?

The Surface, humans, happiness, it was all a lot to get used to. Frisk deciding to have regular sleepovers with all their friends--that was something else to get used to, and was just about as difficult as the rest of it. Sans had never had to think about trying to sleep while there was a human nearby until recently. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust the kid, though that was certainly part of it. It didn’t even  _ really _ make him all that uncomfortable. It was just...odd. Oddly domestic, oddly familial. Oddly normal. 

Tonight, Frisk was at Sans and Papyrus’s. It had been nice so far--it always was. Papyrus had made spaghetti, and it wasn’t even all that bad this time. He’d been improving markedly since they’d come to the Surface. Frisk and Sans had had a short-lived pun-off that ended abruptly when Papyrus started throwing spaghetti at them both. Which had then turned into a longer-lived food fight.

Sans had to admit, for all that the kid was a tiny god that held all their lives in their hands and could crush them on a whim, they really  _ were _ a lot of fun to be around.

After dinner was some puzzles, then some Surface cartoons, then an episode of Mettaton’s newest show--Touring the Surface With a Killer Robot. Papyrus and Frisk spent the majority of the evening practically bouncing off the walls while Sans just watched and laughed. It took hours for them to finally settle down, and then another hour or two after that for Papyrus to finally run out of steam. Frisk had already passed out on the couch, curled up under a blanket.

“Story time, bro?” Sans said when he saw Papyrus’s eyesockets start fluttering closed.

“Ah, a perfect suggestion, brother!” Papyrus somehow managed to keep his voice down enough so as not to disturb the human. “Yes...The Great Papyrus is perhaps a tiny, wee, very small bit tired!”

Sans chuckled to himself and stood up, careful not to bump Frisk’s sleeping form. Papyrus did the same and they both headed up to Papyrus’s room. Sans grabbed the first  _ Fluffy Bunny  _ book he could find off the shelf and took his usual seat on the end of Papyrus’s bed.

“This was a good day, wasn’t it?” Papyrus said, stretching before climbing into bed. “No, better than that--a great day! A day almost as great as me! Did you have fun today, Sans?”

“Yeah, it was nice.” Sans flipped the book open. “Frisk’s a good kid.”

“The Great Papyrus does not like to play favorites, but the tiny human is probably the best human! On the entire Surface!”

“Heh. Maybe you’ve got a point, bro.”

Sans started to read. He barely even needed the book; he’d memorized every word ages ago, but Papyrus liked the pictures. Sans did all the voices like usual.

Normal. This was normal. A new brand of normal, but still keeping a lot of the best parts of the old.

Papyrus was asleep before the end of the book, but Sans finished it all the same. Papyrus always liked the endings best, after all. Once he was done, he set the book on Papyrus’s table, flipped the light switch and headed for the door, his grin contented.

There was a shuffling sound from the hallway. Sans blinked and stepped out in time to see Frisk, still wrapped in the blanket but definitely not asleep. They were backpedaling away from Papyrus’s room.

Sans closed the door behind him.

“Thought you were asleep, kid.”

“Sorry,” Frisk said, looking almost frightened for just a moment before their expression settled into simple contrition. “Sorry, I-I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I just…um…”

He gave them an amicable grin. “Hey, nah, no need to apologize. Did we wake you when we got up?”

“Um…” Frisk toyed with the edges of the blanket. “I wasn’t… _ really  _ asleep…”

“Oho?” He raised a brow ridge at them.

“It’s just…nice…how you read to him like that. I like listening. I’m sorry.”

Sans tilted his head slightly, considering them for a few long moments in silence. They were staring at their slippered feet, still fidgeting with the blanket. They looked for all the world like they’d just been caught doing something actually  _ bad. _

“Frisk…you know, if you wanted a bedtime story, you coulda just asked.”

The tentative hope in their eyes was somewhat heartbreaking.

“R-Really? You’d read to me? I…I’ve never had a bedtime story before.”

Not for the first time, Sans wondered just what the  _ hell _ Frisk’s life must have been like before coming to the Underground. Frisk was a kid. Kids got bedtime stories. That was--that was just how things  _ worked. _

There was so much about Frisk he just didn’t know. So much he’d never even bothered to ask. Maybe that had been part of the problem.

“Toriel hasn’t read to you?”

Frisk shook their head. “I haven’t asked. I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

“Aww, kid.” Sans reached out and ruffled their hair a little. That finally got a smile back on their face. “You’re not a nuisance. Not to Toriel and not to me. ‘Course I’ll read you a bedtime story. You got one in mine?”

“Um…not really. I don’t know very many…”

“Well, heh.” Sans took their hand and led them back down the stairs. “Guess if you’ve been listening in all this time, you’ve probably heard the whole  _ Fluffy Bunny _ series by now. So how about a new one? Got just the thing. The lady who used to run the inn back in Snowdin told me about it. It’s another one with bunnies, and it’s from the Surface. Ever heard of  _ Goodnight Moon?” _

Frisk’s eyes widened a little as they settled back on the couch.

“Oh…I’ve heard of that one. It’s a popular one up here. I think.”

Sans scanned the downstairs bookshelves until he found it, then sat down next to Frisk.

“You can be my test audience. Haven’t read this one to Papyrus yet. Mostly because I figured he wouldn’t know what a moon was. Some things are kinda hard to explain, and you sound pretty  _ moony _ if you even try, heh.”

Frisk snorted a little.

“Shh, we can’t do puns if Papyrus isn’t even here to react.”

“That  _ is _ half the fun, isn’t it? Alright, let’s get this bedtime show on the road. Frisk’s first ever bedtime story. Here we go.”

He paused for just a moment, because the weight of all this had just hit him. And also because Frisk was literally leaning their weight against him, curling up beside him so they could look at the pictures.

Oddly domestic. Oddly familial. Oddly normal.

He had to do this right.

“‘In the great green room,’” he intoned, “‘there was a telephone, and a red balloon, and a picture of...’”

Sans had never really considered himself any kind of story-reading expert, partially because there were very few things that he knew he was good at, but Papyrus always said he was. He tried his best, reading slowly so Frisk could read along, turning the pages slowly so they could look at all the pictures. The colors were vivid, the drawings lovely. The writing was simple and sweet.

The few moments he took to steal a glance at Frisk, to see how they were enjoying it, the kid seemed enraptured. They smiled at the rhymes at at the descriptions of the bunny character’s bedroom.

“What’s mush?” they asked a few pages in.

“I have no idea. Heh, you humans eat some pretty weird things.”

Frisk giggled. “Says the guy who was selling plants and pretending they were hotdogs.”

“Touche, kid.”

He kept reading. Frisk smiled brightly at the picture of the old lady bunny, muttering something that sounded like “mom.” As the narrator started to say goodnight to their room, Frisk started yawning. Their breathing evened out. Sans read a little slower, lingering on each page, even as the drawings became more minimal. Frisk gave a snort of amusement at the page that simply said “goodnight nobody.”

“‘Goodnight stars, goodnight air,’” Sans read, voice a low rumble, “‘goodnight noises everywhere.’”

The contented smile was back on his face. He closed the book and looked over at Frisk. Their eyes were closed. They were half-asleep.

“Thanks, Sans,” they mumbled.

There was a lot up here to get used to, but Sans thought maybe he could get used to this.

“Goodnight, Frisk.”


End file.
